Whitman And Transcendentalism

Echoing Transcendentalism

Can you achieve a flowing, harmonious life without disconnecting each day’s thoughts and therefore allowing possible contradiction? Whitman and Emerson would answer no to this oxymoron type question. Both men wrote of transcendentalism, and believed that by allowing yourself to contradict with your past thoughts you will be able to grow as a man. In Emerson’s Self Reliance he explains how a man can achieve greatness by allowing contradiction within himself. His central ideals are reflected in these lines: “Speak what you think now in hard words. And to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.” (p. 24) In this section, Emerson expresses the idea “to live

In Canto 51 from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Whitman echoes Emerson’s beliefs: to use past thoughts as a mold so that your present ones always align with your past is to not allow new ideas to happen, and

Reflecting Emerson’s idea that a leaf bud before it bursts has the same essence as the beloved flower, mankind will continue to dwell on the past, the old flower. They will not care equally as much for the present, the leaf bud yet to bloom. Whitman captures the idea of continuing life by the action of emptying, and as a result separating. By separating, the old ideas are unable to contaminate the new. How a man might cut ties with each idea as a way to allow himself to expand is seen as Whitman describes his end of the day process: “Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of the evening,” Whitman creates the image of drawing his night to a close by the extinguishing of a light. The transforming of day to night is compared to the action of blowing out a candle, an action usually seen as quick. He is accepting that the ideas of today are cut off just as abruptly as the day itself. Created from this divide is the beginning of different ideas. The acceptance of contradicting emotions from two different selves within a singular person is the main focus in Whitman’s Canto 5; this is an idea strongly supported by